The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.

Loading ...

Loading ...

This story appears in the {{article.article.magazine.pretty_date}} issue of {{article.article.magazine.pubName}}. Subscribe

Earlier this week we examined how Star Wars: The Old Republic lost its way as it attempted to compete with the reigning king of the MMO universe, World of Warcraft. By copying rather than innovating, and relying too heavily on its license, SWTOR steadily lost subscribers until they sunk under a million just recently. To entice players to return, the game announced that it's going free-to-play this fall. Many MMOs have followed this path, but none cost nearly as much as SWTOR and the project has been a constant headache for EA.

But as it stands, its competition isn't doing so hot either. World of Warcraft is still the top MMO around with 9.1M paid subscribers. The only problem? Three months ago, that number was 10.2 million.

Activision announced in its quarterly earnings report that WoW had indeed lost over a million subscribers in the last three months. The game has been in decline for quite some time, but this drop is the sharpest to date.

This is a real problem for Activision, who relies heavily on WoW for as much as 30% of its revenue. Vivendi, the French company which owns Activision, has been looking to sell for some time, but they've been having trouble offloading to anyone as many seem to be wary of the company's future. Our own Agustino Fontevecchia has a great in depth look at Vivendi and Activision's woes that I highly suggest you check out.

What's detracting from WoW is fairly obvious. Diablo 3 clearly cannibalized a lot of players since its release, but even though it's an Activision/Blizzard property, it's not a subscription based game. And then of course there are the legions of other free-to-play MMOs and MOBAs, led by League of Legends which now has well over 15M players and has become the most played game in the world.

Then there's the simple fact that WoW is just getting old. It was released in 2004 and though it's had many expansions and updates since, it's aging. Additionally, many longtime players see the new changes as poor decisions which have caused them to flee the game entirely.

The future looks rather dark for WoW heading into the coming months and years as well. Though Mists of Pandaria is out this fall, giant fighting pandas are hardly going to persuade the hardcore MMO crowd that the game isn't catering too much to casuals. Additionally, Fontevecchia posits that the upcoming Guild Wars 2 is going to be a huge hit to WoW, as it's a very obvious step forward for the MMO genre. Star Wars: The Old Republic failed in part because it tried to copy WoW too much. Guild Wars 2 has similar elements, but judging from the beta, it definitely feels like an evolution of the genre, and will make WoW feel decidedly last generation.

It's not all bad news for Activision of course. They still set records every year with their annual Call of Duty release, and this fall's Black Ops 2 is surely going to be a huge seller. Next year Starcraft 2 fans will welcome the Heart of the Swarm expansion, and that game continues to be played constantly as an eSport around the world. And then there's the mystery IP that isn't Warcraft, Starcraft or Diablo, codenamed Project Titan, that Blizzard has been working on for years.

But for their most profitable game to be bleeding this badly is rough for the company, and Diablo 3 not being the beloved smash hit it was supposed to be isn't helping matters either. As their parent company tries to unload them, it might be shaping up to be a pretty rough year for Activision.

Update: It appears Vivendi is backing off its plans to try and sell Activision as Eric Savitz reports.